Gunfire erupts in 'hot' spot; target runs for life

Friday

Dec 7, 2012 at 12:01 AM

STOCKTON - A man authorities believe was the target of a brazen midday shooting Thursday was stunned when he came out of his hiding place to see 30 shell casings lining the street where he was walking his dog an hour earlier.

Jason Anderson

STOCKTON - A man authorities believe was the target of a brazen midday shooting Thursday was stunned when he came out of his hiding place to see 30 shell casings lining the street where he was walking his dog an hour earlier.

The 20-year-old Latino man said he was walking west in the 400 block of East Lindsay Street between California and Sutter streets when the shooting occurred at 2:11 p.m., the second time in nine days gunfire has erupted on that block. The victim said two young black men approached him, one from the front and one from behind, before one of them opened fire.

The victim said he ran for his life, first toward a locked salon and then into a market, where he crouched behind a counter until police secured the scene. He was not injured in the shooting.

"He pointed the gun at me and said, 'Why you flinching? Why you flinching?' Then he just started shooting at me," the victim said. "I heard a lot of shots. I don't know how many. I just started panicking and running. I don't know how I didn't get shot. I'm lucky as hell to be alive."

A witness who asked not to be identified because she feared for her safety said the gunman was steadying a green bicycle with one hand and holding a handgun with the other. Police are seeking two people in connection with the shooting, both black men 18 to 19 years old who were wearing black hooded sweatshirts, authorities said. They initially believed there were two gunmen, and the victim may have been caught in the crossfire, but evidence suggests there was one shooter, said Officer Joe Silva, a spokesman for the Stockton Police Department.

Mai Hoang, a 28-year-old Stockton woman, said she was sitting in her car when she heard shots ring out nearby.

"It was scary," she said. "I put my head down when I heard the shots. I thought they were going to be shooting back and forth and I was going to die."

The victim said he hid next to an air-conditioning unit near the back door of the salon while his dog, an 11-month-old pit bull named Hippo, ran under the car Hoang was sitting in.

"I almost had to leave her there, but I thought, 'No, I can't leave her,' " the victim said. "I called her, and she ran to me."

The victim picked up his dog and ran to the market next door.

"We told him, 'No, don't come here,' because we were scared, but then he came in," a woman working at the store said. "A lady customer was telling him, 'Go back outside.' "

Police placed 33 evidence markers on East Lindsay Street marking the locations of 30 shell casings and three bullet fragments. There were at least three bullet holes in an Acura parked outside the salon, which is across the street from a Women, Infants and Children center.

The shooting occurred at the precise location where a midday gunbattle left 22 shell casings in the street Nov. 27. Police believe two men exchanged gunfire with two other men in that shooting. One of the men was wounded and left a trail of blood on the sidewalk, but police were unable to locate him.

A number of other crimes have been committed within a small radius of Thursday's shooting, including shots fired Nov. 27 at Fremont Park and a murder Sunday at Oak and American streets.

"We've investigated several shootings, numerous street robberies and a homicide in that area," Silva said. "That area is one of our hot, prime areas in the city of Stockton, and our investigators will look into all these cases to see if this shooting is related to the surge of violence in that area."